Barrow County Starts Layoffs

Barrow County has laid off 18 employees this week. The county cut the workers Monday and Tuesday as part of plans to deal with a $5 million budget shortfall. Three other employees took early retirement. The jobs ranged from the fire department to the tax commissioner's office. The county has cut other expenses since the shortfall was announced in January, but it still faces a $1.6 million deficit. Cuts include eliminating holiday pay, salary reductions and a hiring freeze. Barrow County is northeast of Atlanta. It has about 400 workers.

(Associated Press)

End of the Line For Cartersville Train Company

A rail car company in Northwest Georgia has told state officials over six hundred people will be laid off this summer.

Employees at the Trinity North American Freight Car plant in Cartersville make rail road equipment. And by the end of August, that work will be idled as the plant is closed and some 659 fewer employees will be laid off.

The company did release a statement saying "The plant closure is due to a downturn in orders in that sector of the business."

Northwest Georgia is already reeling from chronic double digit unemployment. Counselors from the Georgia Department of Labor will meet with Trinity workers next week to go over services that the state agency can provide. Trinity’s Cartersville plant has been open since 2001.

BB&T Closing Check Processing Center in Macon

Branch Banking and Trust is closing its check processing center in Macon. Company officials say new technology will now allow them to do the work at branch offices. BB&T says it will do everything possible to find jobs within the company for the 40 people who work at the processing center. Those who cannot be placed with the bank will be offered severance packages. The closing takes place on May 1, 2009.

Rheem Plant Closing

A Milledgeville plant is closing for good, leaving 12-hundred people without jobs.
Back in 2008 Rheem Manufacturing laid off hundreds at their Milledgeville facility. Last month the company called 700 of those employees back to work. Now, they've learned they will be out of work again by the end of the year.
The plant sits on 90 acres in Milledgeville. it opened more than thirty years ago. Employees there make equipment for the heating and cooling industry. Atlanta-based Rheem says business has plummeted in the last year.
The employees will be laid off in stages. Company representatives are meeting with union officials to work out a severance package. The plant will shut down by the end of the year.

University System Considers Tuition Hikes, Furloughs

Incoming freshmen at Georgia's colleges and universities may have to pay more than their predecessors.

University System of Georgia Chancellor Erroll B. Davis told lawmakers at a committee meeting Monday that he doesn't "see any way tuition is not going to go up." Most students already enrolled in colleges wouldn't see a tuition increase under the "Fixed for Four" plan that guarantees the same tuition rate for four years.

Davis also told the committee that furloughs are possible for the system's 40,000 employees, reversing his statement in January that he is "philosophically opposed" to asking employees to take unpaid days off. He says campus presidents ultimately will make the decision. The system has laid off 62 workers so far this fiscal year.

Associated Press

LaGrange Company To Idle 100+ Workers

A company in LaGrange that makes gas and electric cooking appliances is hitting its workforce with a second round of lay-offs in a three-month period. Roper Corporation will furlough 120 workers temporarily by the end of this month. It follows a similar action last month that laid-off more than 250 workers.

The company cites the continued economic downturn as reason for the lay-offs. Roper Corporation makes appliances under the G.E., Profile, and Monogram brands.

Cessna to Cut Jobs in Columbus

Cessna Skyhawk (Illustration)

Cessna Aircraft says they plan to lay off about 100 workers at their plant in Columbus. There are 650 employees at the west Georgia facility, which make sheet metal parts for their light aircraft.

The job cuts are part of the Kansas-based firm’s effort to trim their workforce by 2,000 – or about 13 percent.

Cessna officials say the worldwide economic downturn is forcing customers to cancel or delay orders for new aircraft.

Cessna employs about 15,000 people worldwide.

The company also plans to order employee furloughs, beginning in March, although details haven't been released.

Workers being laid off will receive 60-day notices within the next few weeks, Cessna spokesman Robert Stangarone said in a telephone interview, adding that the cuts will be spread "across all areas and all salary levels."

Click here for more GPB News coverage about business in Columbus.

Standard Candy Company factory closing

The small city of Eastman is known as the "Candy Capital" of Georgia. Now the factory that helped give the city this distinction is closing.
Back in the 1950's the Stuckey family opened its candy factory in Eastman where they manufactured the iconic pecan roll. Years later the Standard Candy Company bought the facility and continued making their own version of the concoction of "fluffy nougat with rich creamy caramel, covered in Georgia pecans."
In April that plant will close and its 250 jobs will move to Nashville. Josh Fenn is with the Eastman-Dodge County Chamber of Commerce. He says the community is losing part of its identity.

"A lot of people know Eastman for being the birthplace of the famous Stuckey's store and convenience store chain that was very dominant in the 50's, 60's, and early 70's and nationwide kind of a forefather to the modern day convenience store."

In 2007 Standard Candy Company expanded their Eastman plant with more than a million dollars in grants and low interest loans from the State of Georgia.

Georgia Power Plans Layoffs

Georgia Power plans to ask several hundred workers to take a voluntary lay-off. Today the Southern Company unit made the offer to full- and part-time employees who have been with the company for 10 or more years. After workers come forward voluntarily, the company may have to make further job cuts.

(Atlanta Business Chronicle)

Albany: applicants swamp job fair

Turnout at an Albany job fair for a Marine Corps contractor on Friday was so great that the contractor, AECOM, says they canceled about 200 interviews that were scheduled for Sunday.

“AECOM has told us that they have so many applications, they will not be honoring those interviews,” Kari Finley, media and events manager for Goodwill Industries of the Southern Rivers and the fair’s host told the Albany Herald newspaper.

More than 1,500 registered for 125 positions, according to the report. The contractor interviewed some 450 applicants.

The more than 10 to one rush for spots comes in the wake of the announcement by the city's Cooper Tire plant that it was shuttering its doors in '09, a move that will put more than 2,000 people out of work.

Georgia unemployment is at a 25-year high.

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Cooper Tire Plant closing in Albany

More than 2-thousand full and part time workers in Albany are losing their jobs at the Cooper Tire plant.
The news came in a phone call. Cooper Tire CEO Roy Armes called Governor Sonny Perdue, then notified Albany officials. The plant was selected from four U.S. based Cooper plants to shut down.
The decision came following a two month study that looked at each facility. During that time residents hung 1-thousand blue and white bows to show their appreciation for one of the areas largest employers. Barbara Holmes is with the Albany-Dougherty County Economic Development Commission.

"The most important thing is not just that we're losing these jobs, but these are families that will be affected."

Holmes says the economic impact to southwest Georgia is around 500-million dollars. Cooper blames the closure on higher costs and shrinking demand in the automobile business.

Budget cutbacks close Atlanta firestation

Atlanta residents are feeling the pinch of municipal cutbacks that stir concerns about fire and police protection.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran has announced plans to close Fire Station 23, located on Howell Mill Road near I-75, and will shut down a firetruck stationed near Candler Park starting Christmas Day.

At a public meeting, Berkeley Park Neighborhood Association president Michael Wagoner says closing Fire Station 23 is unacceptable.

Meanwhile, nearly all departments at City Hall now are closed on Fridays as Atlanta tries to save money to close a projected budget shortfall of at least $50 million. Sales taxes, building permit fees and other city revenues are down by nearly 13 percent so far this budget year.

Mayor Shirley Franklin has made four rounds of layoffs since May.

In related budget cutbacks statewide, Camden County Sheriff-elect Tommy Gregory has sent notices to 27 employees in the department telling them they no longer will have jobs on January 4th. Gregory says there were initially 45 employees on the list he considered firing.

The departures will include most of the command staff.

(AP)

Click here for more GPB News coverage about the economic downturn in Georgia.

Georgia's unemployed growing in number

As the economy falls, unemployment numbers in Georgia just keep going up, and for many parts of the state the bad news just keeps coming.
Layoffs, according to the State's Labor Department, are hitting industries ranging from carpet plant workers to real estate developers.
Georgia's jobless rate is now 7-percent, the highest it's been in 16 years. This news comes as 90 employees at Coachmen Industries in Fitzgerald, are wrapping up their last week at work due to layoffs.
In the last year the town of 9-thousand also saw the closing of a yarn factory where more than 500 people worked. It's a scene being repeated across the state. Economists expect job losses across Georgia to grow until at least 2010.

More layoffs in South Georgia

250 workers in Bainbridge will lose their jobs when American Fibers and Yards shutters a plant there. The company filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday and told employees about the layoffs yesterday. Company officials said the plant will cease operations on Oct. 15.

Unemployment claims are highest 1-year jump in 7 years

The state’s Department of Labor says this morning 59,090 laid-off workers filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits in August. That number stands as an increase of 72-percent over August of last year. Labor department officials say it’s the largest over-the-year jump in initial claims since October of 2001--that’s when significant layoffs were seen in the weeks following the terrorist attacks.

State unemployment is highest May level in 15 years

The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose a half of 1-percent in May, now to a mark of 5.8 percent. That represents the highest May level in 15 years. Georgia's current rate is three-tenths of a percent higher than the national average.

Layoffs in manufacturing and other industries led to a total of over 284,816 unemployed workers in May--that is the highest level ever recorded in Georgia.

City of Atlanta budget crisis to force massive layoffs

More than 400 people who work for the city of Atlanta may lose their jobs under a new plan proposed by its mayor to deal with budget problems. Mayor Shirley Franklin’s plan to deal with an expected 140-million dollar shortfall calls for layoffs to begin today and go through Monday. The city may combine job cuts with a property tax increase and fee increases to make its budget.

Sony to layoff 100 workers in Carrollton

100 workers will be out of work at a Sony distribution center in west Georgia. The company says the layoffs are happening at the Carrollton site because of a normal drop-off of order volume. There is also the end of a distribution agreement with a third-party customer. Sony employs 360 people at the center--the facility was opened in 1981.